During the summer and warmer months, I often want something a little lighter for dinner. You won’t find many soups or casseroles on my menu plan right now. I am much more likely to grill something or make a salad.

I love salad for dinner. It is a quick, easy, and healthy meal. However, my husband does not really like just salad for dinner. In order to make us both happy, I like to serve salads that contain quite a bit of meat. Or at least where my husband’s salad can contain quite a bit of meat.

This buttermilk grilled chicken salad works perfectly for that. We both enjoy this salad, and it makes for a perfect summertime meal.

Buttermilk Grilled Chicken Salad

Marinade:

• 1 cup buttermilk
• 1 tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 tablespoon honey
• 1 teaspoon salt
• ½ teaspoon thyme
• ½ teaspoon dried sage
• ½ teaspoon ground black pepper

Meat

4 boneless skinless chicken breast, or other cuts of chicken

Whisk together marinade ingredients. Add chicken and let marinade for 4-8 hours, turning chicken occasionally. I like to let this marinade for about 8 hours, but less time will work.

Remove chicken from marinade and grill chicken until done.

Serve over lettuce, and other desired vegetables.

This post linked to Foodie Fridays and What’s On Your Plate.

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It is fall and fall is perfect soup weather. One of the things that I like about fall and winter is that I can start cooking soups again. I know some people eat soup during the summer, but I don’t like to. I just can’t enjoy a bowl of steamy, hot soup in July when it is 99 degrees out.  I need cool weather to put me in the mood for soup.

One thing I like about soup it is usally a frugal meal.  Not only is it frugal, it is usually a one dish meal.  You can serve it with bread, but you don’t have to. Soup is a meal all by itself. You don’t need a side dish or salad to go with it. A big bowl of soup for lunch or dinner and you have a great meal.

Now I just need to decide which soup to make. Here are a few I am thinking about.

Tomato Soup

Spinach Minestrone

Creamy Potato Soup

Cheeseburger Soup

 I can’t decide. Maybe we will just have soup week next week. I wonder if my family would mind soup every night.

 For more frugal recipes and ideas see Frugal Fridays and Grocery Cart Challenge. For more recipes see Foody Fridays and The Vanderbilt Wife. For more soups and stocks see Kitchen Stewardship.

Earlier this week when I posted my menu plan, I wrote about seeing how far I could make my pork roast stretch.  Well, I was able to get four meals out of it and my family enjoyed all four meals. 

My goal in doing this was for time or my lack of time this week. I knew I had a couple of really busy days and I wanted to have dinners that I could put together easily and quickly.  Cooking up a lot of meat at one time and serving it for several days saves me a lot of time. 

Not only does it save time, it saves money, because I use up all the meat, even the last little bit that I had at the end. Cooking meals like this is also saves money because meat is usually not the focus of the last meal or two, it is only a small part of the meal. This makes a meal or two much cheaper to prepare.

When I serve three or four meals using the same meat, I do make sure to serve it in different ways.  My family, especially my husband, does not want to be served the same thing over and over. So, I have to come up with creative ways to make the same meat seem different every night.

Here is how I fixed all four meals.

I cooked about 4 lbs of pork in the crockpot with barbecue sauce. I than shredded the meat and added some more sauce to it.  I then took out enough for the first meal.  This is part of making it stretch.  If I set a big bowl of meat in front of my family they tend to eat more meat and less of the other foods.  Then the meat won’t go as far as I want it to.  So I put on the table about the amount I think we need for that meal. 

For the first meal we ate it as barbecue pork on hamburger buns, so basically pork sandwiches.  I served it with potato salad and vegetables.

The second night I had planned on cooking it different, but we ended up again having it has sandwiches, but this time with chips and fruit.

The third night I served it on baked potatoes. 

We like shredded barbecue meat on baked potatoes. Several barbecue restaurants near us serve a dish like this and we really like it. So, we have learned to do our own version at home. I served this with bread and salad.

The fourth night I had less than 2 cups of meat left.  Not enough to do much with, so I made a barbecue pizza with it.  Instead of using pizza sauce, I spread barbecue sauce on homemade pizza dough. I spread the meat on top of that and then also put chopped tomatoes on it.  I then spread colby jack cheese on it and baked it.  This made a great meal using only a little amount of meat.

So what tips do you have for making meat stretch for more than one meal?

For more frugal ideas and recipes see Frugal Friday and Grocery Cart Challenge.

It seems like every once in a while I have a conversation with one of my parents that gives me a glimpse of their childhood that I have never seen before.  I enjoy this when it happens.  It is good for us to hear the stories of previous generations.  We can learn a lot from them.

I guess my parent’s enjoyed my post last week on frugal snacks like graham crackers and frosting or pie crust.  My parent’s found it quite funny that my sisters and I thought my mom was the only one that had come up with the idea of those snacks.  Well, many of you left comments on how you enjoyed them too and that they were part of your childhood.  So, my sisters and I now know that this is something many people used to do in order to avoid waste. My mom was not the only one that made those treats.

When my dad and I were having a conversation about all of that, he started talking about this great dessert his mom, my grandmother, used to make.  It was not really a recipe, just a quick and fun dessert.  He said he loved it and it was such a treat because they rarely could afford store bought treats.  He also said his dad loved it.  He said it was one of his dad’s favorite desserts to eat. 

What was it?  It was ice cream sandwiches made from vanilla wafers.  When my dad told me about them I immediately thought, why I hadn’t I thought of that!  That is a great idea. My grandma was so smart to do that. A whole box of vanilla wafers and a container of ice cream would feed a ton of kids or people dessert. Everyone could have one or two and feel like they got dessert without really eating that much.

My dad said my grandma almost always had a box of vanilla wafers in the back of the cupboard so that she could make these for a quick dessert when she needed it. 

After my dad told me about these I knew I needed to try it.  So, I got a box of vanilla wafers this week at the store and we made vanilla wafer ice cream sandwiches one night.  My kids thought they were great.  I liked them because after only one or two I felt like I had dessert, but I had not eaten a lot of dessert. I will be making these again.

I think they would make a great idea for a kid’s party. You can make a whole bunch ahead of time and place them in the freezer. Then for the party all you have to do is take them out and serve them.  It really is an easy, frugal, and fun dessert.

What a great idea and a great story dad, thanks!

For more frugal ideas see Frugal Fridays and Grocery Cart Challenge. Also posted at Food On Fridays.

This week I made some frosting for a cake and I decided I did not need it all.  So, I used some of it to make these for my kids.

Graham crackers with frosting.  Have you ever had these?  They make a great, easy, and frugal snack.  Not the healthiest, but they are a great treat for once in awhile. 

My mom used to give us these when I was a kid.  If she did not have anything else for a dessert or snack she would give us these.  She could easily whip up some frosting with just a few ingredients and we usually had graham crackers. So, why not put the two together?

My mom was great about coming up with ideas for frugal snacks.  She used what she had and she got creative. She would make home made trail mix and give it to us.  I make something similar for my kids.  Sometimes she made the “trail mix” or snack mix out of cold cereal that she had bought on sale.   She might use cheerios, raisins, and peanuts and that was all. If she had a different cereal, she would use it instead.  It was an easy, fun,and frugal snack or dessert to give us. It wasn’t fancy, but we enjoyed it.

Another thing my mom used to do and I also do occasionally is to make a snack out of pie crust.

Now, again this is not the healthiest snack, but it makes a good snack or dessert once in a while.  When you make pie you usually have a few scraps left over.  My mom would roll these scraps out and put it on a cookie sheet. She would then spread a little butter on it and sprinkle it with cinnamon and sugar.  Bake at 350 for around 10 minutes. This will take more or less time depending on how thick you roll the crust.  Break into pieces and serve to your kids.

Next time your kids want a snack look around and be creative.  Fun snacks do not have to cost a lot.

For more frugal ideas see Frugal Fridays and Grocery Cart Challenge.

I enjoy making bread.  Bread and bread products are one of my favorite things to make.  I love to experiment and try new recipes.  But I have a few favorites that I continue to go back to.  This recipe is one of those.

I saw this on a Martha Stewart show over two years ago.  I immediately wanted to try it. I was fascinated by the idea of being able to make a really good loaf of Artisan style bread.  Now this is not sandwich style lunch bread.   This is the type of bread that goes great with Italian food or even a steak dinner. It has a great crispy crust and a nice chewy center.  Just the way my family likes it.

I still make the Artisan Bread in Five Minutes that I posted about last year, but I like this one as much if not more than that recipe. The Artisan Bread In Five recipe is easy and great to have on hand.  But this recipe is the closest I have come to a really good bakery or restaurant style bread.  It is worth the extra effort and is much cheaper than buying a loaf like this from a bakery or store.

A year or two after I first read tried this recipe; Cook’s Illustrated did a version.  I combined some of the techniques of Cook’s Illustrated with the recipe and directions of the original to come up with bread we really like.

The main trick to this recipe is heating up the dish you bake the bread in.  Do not skip that step with this recipe. The technique gives this bread the crust that makes it so good.

No Knead Bread

Makes one 1 1/2-pound loaf

3 cups all-purpose or bread flour, plus more for work surface

1/4 teaspoon instant yeast

1 1/4 teaspoons salt

1 ½ cups water

Olive oil, as needed

Cornmeal, as needed

In a large bowl, combine flour, yeast, and salt. Add 1 1/2 cups water and stir until blended; dough will be shaggy and sticky. Coat a second large bowl with olive oil. Transfer dough to oiled bowl and cover bowl with plastic wrap. Let dough rest at least 12 hours, but preferably up to 18. When surface is dotted with bubbles, dough is ready.

Lightly flour work surface, place dough on work surface and sprinkle with more flour. Fold the dough over on itself once or twice, kneading slightly.  You do not want to knead this much, just a few times.  Loosely cover with plastic wrap and let rest about 15 minutes.

Sprinkle just enough over work surface and your fingers to keep dough from sticking; quickly and gently shape dough into a ball. Generously coat a cotton towel (not terry cloth) with, cornmeal; place dough seam side down on towel and dust with more cornmeal. Cover with a second cotton towel and let rise until it has more than doubled in size and does not readily spring back when poked with a finger, about 2 hours.

After about 1 1/2 hours, preheat oven to 450 degrees. Place a 6- to 8-quart heavy oven safe covered pot, such as cast-iron or Pyrex, in oven as it heats. When dough has fully risen, carefully remove pot from oven. Remove top towel from dough and slide your hand under the bottom towel; turn dough over into pot, seam side up. Shake pan once or twice if dough looks unevenly distributed; it will straighten out as it bakes. Cover, and bake 30 minutes. Uncover, and continue baking until browned, 5-10 minutes. Cool on a wire rack.

For more frugal ideas see Frugal Fridays or Grocery Cart Challenge.